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^LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 



c. lofJo. A' 

Southern Fbices: 



Poems 






\ 












BY 



WM. H. HOLCOMBE, M. D. 




PHILADELPHIA 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1872. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



LIPPINCOTT S PRESS, PHILADELPHIA. 



Contents 



PAGE 

DEDICATION 7 

PRELUDE 9 



SOUTHERN VOICES. 

SONGS THAT LIVE FOR EVER 15 

THE PEACEMAKER 16 

STONEWALL JACKSON 17 

THE SURRENDER 18 

THE POOR CONFEDERATE 20 

PHANTASMAGORIA 22 

PASSING AWAY 23 

TRAMPLED TO DEATH 24 

GONE FOR EVER 25 

VINDICATION 26 

THE SOUTHERN MOTHER 27 

HOW LONG, O LORD ? 29 

WEARY 30 

THE WAYS OF GOD 31 

PERHAPS IN US 32 

i* 5 



6 Contents. 



PAGE 

THE SENTINEL AT ARLINGTON 33 

TRANSITIONAL 34 

LOSING TO FIND 36 

CLAD IN WHITE 37 

UNION 39 

LONGSTREET 40 

RECONSTRUCTED 41 

FREE 42 

WILL SHINE AGAIN . . 43 

ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT E. LEE 44 

WRONG 46 

THE BURIAL 47 

INEVITABLE 49 

THE FUTURE 50 

BEREAVED. 

BEREAVED 55 

THE DEAD SOUL. 

THE DEAD SOUL 73 

PERSONS AND THINGS. 

MONTAGUE THE PILOT 85 

THE DUKES REVENGE 87 

DEATH OF GENERAL CHARLES LEE 89 



Contents. 7 

PAGE 

LITTLE LUCY 92 

TO SWEDENBORG 94 

THE OLD MUSICIAN 95 

UNDER THE CHERRY TREE 97 

ORLEANNA 98 

FAREWELL, O SEA ! 100 

CHILDREN AT PLAY 102 

THE HUNTERS HORN 104 

BEFORE AND AFTER THE BATTLE 105 

MUSIC ALL THE DAY 107 

THE OLD COUNTRY CHURCH 109 

MARIE. 

MARIE 119 

ETHEREA. 

NOCTURNE 127 

SEA VOICES 130 

THE ANGEL OF MORNING 131 

LISTENING 132 

SPIRITUAL VISION 133 

THIS HUMAN SOUL 136 

STREAMLET SPEAKS 138 

ROSEBUD AND SUNBEAM 139 

INMOST 140 



Contents. 



PAGE 

PHANTASIES 141 

SUBSTANCE AND SHADOW . . . . 143 

NATURE CONSOLING 145 

VOICELESS . . . . 147 

RECEDING ANGELS 148 

IN THE DEPTHS 150 

O SEA-BREEZE . . . . '. 151 

DESCENSUS AVERNI 152 

THE STRANGE SONG 155 

GOD IN THE GARDEN 156 

LET ME GO ! 158 

THE TWO FIGURES 159 

NEW THANATOPSIS 160 




Dedication. 



TO ADA 



My one sweet child! my soid's delight ! 

I bring these songs to thee. 
Thy love, thy beauty, day and night 

Are spirit-songs to me. 

For all such music from thy birth 
This small return is given : 

These, these are but the songs of earth, 
While thine come down from heaven. 

New Orleans, 

September, 187 1. 



Prelude. 



Disdain us not, kindly heart of Man ! — 

Us unregarded poets of the earth, 
The little songsters, singing, as we can, 

Our eager melodies of little worth. 

We feel the pangs the greatest poets feel, 

The loves, the sympathies, the woes, the wrongs : 

What we with faltering measures half reveal, 
They blazon to the world in golden songs. 

The mocking-bird in high imperial notes 

Showers his passion o'er the moonlit groves ; 

Obscurer warblers, with less tuneful throats, 
Find listeners also for their happy loves. 

When the great sun withdraws his flaming sphere, 
And his long trains of amber light expire, 

Some little star, to heart and memory dear, 
Steals softly forth and strikes its silver fire. 



■'..l//«i 



Southern Voices. 



<r<^m^ 



Songs That Live For Ever. 



Thoughts of kindness gently uttered, 
Words of brotherhood and peace, 

Are the songs that live for ever 
Down the surging centuries. 

For though strong our hateful passions, 
Yet the Christ is stronger still ; 

And, all human wills subduing, 
He shall work His heavenly will. 

Each true poet is His prophet, 

And his thoughts are clothed with light, 
For he sings the coming sunshine 

In the darkness of the night; 

And his prophecies are sacred; 

For, although the -time be long, 
And the world forget the singer, 

Yet will God fulfill the song. 



The Peacemaker. 



Brave and safe-centred in the peace of God 

Is that true soul who calmly dares withstand 

The cruel frenzy of the populace, 

And in the hot, red mouths of hostile guns, 

And in the shining teeth of million swords, 

And in the scornful faces of fierce men, 

Lifts high in hand the heaven-bright cross of Christ, 

And meekly pleads for brotherhood and love. 

A hero crowned with light is he ! as brave 

As Hood or Hancock grappling with grim death 

On thunderous heights, a-blaze with bayonets, 

Beneath the flaming glory of their flags ! 




Stonewall Jackson. 



Oh, love and revere his name ! 

Repeat and repeat his story ! 
He died on the heights of fame; 

He lives in the songs of glory. 

A saint with the cross in his hand, 

A soldier with fiery sword, 
He died for his native land ; 

He lives in the light of the Lord. 

O glorious life and death ! 

O tender and lustrous fame ! 
The Ages with bated breath 

Will uncover their heads at his name. 

2 * 17 



The Surrender. 



The last gun was fired, 

The last roll was called ; 
Half starved and half naked, 

Grim, gaunt, unappalled, 

Stained with blood and with powder, 
The old Army stood. 
" I have done, my brave soldiers, 
All things for your good." 

Thus spoke their great Leader, 

Deep grief on his face, 
While a halo of glory 

Illumined the place. 

And some trailed their muskets, 
And some sheathed their swords ; 

They had smiled at Grant's cannon— 
They wept at Lee's words. 



The Surrender, 19 

And Grant was as courteous 

As the great knights of old: 
No glad cheers were uttered, 

No loud drums were rolled. 

The victors saluted 

The gaunt men in gray; 
And the fire-winged tempest 

Died softly away. 




The Poor Confederate. 



Closing of a wintry day, 

Sound of winter seas ; 
Wailing of a sad, cold wind 

In the leafless trees ; 

Drifting of the slow, black clouds, 

Sunset overcast; 
Shadows o'er the gloomy hills 

Creeping dark and fast; 

Echoes moaning far and near, 

Voices in the air; 
Burdens pressing on the heart, 

Whispers of despair; 

Visions of the distant home, 

Faces at the door; 
Eager hands stretched out in vain, 

Sweet lips — kissed no more ; 



The Poor Confederate. 21 

Smoking fields at twilight dim, 

Battle's red, hot breath ; 
Broken banners, shattered guns, 

Carnage, glory, death ; 

Lonely glen for burial-place, 

Cold and bloody ground ; 
Rough, rude grave among the briers, 

Silence, darkness round ; 

Friendless, nameless, dead and lost. 

Let the curtain fall ! 
Sleep — long sleep, and God's own peace — 

And that is all ! 




Phantasma goria. 



In a strange country has my Spirit been 
Through day-dreams and the watches of the night 
Hither and thither like a wandering storm ; 
Hither and thither moaning like the sea, 
That ever casteth up its pleading hands ; 
Through a strange country, dim and desolate, 
Lurid with light of sunsets dipped in blood, 
And full of shadowy mountains gray with mist, 
And sheeted cataracts and wailing woods, 
And valleys dusky with the smoke of war; 
Down-toppled cities, tracts of smouldering fire, 
And golden palaces half sunk in sand ; 
All blown across by many howling winds, 
And wildly kissed by ever-troubled seas, 
And haunted by fierce whispers, and the sound 
Of ghostly banners in the air, and tread 
Of feet that were invisible, and the roll 
Of muffled cannon echoing round the world, 
And all the gunners dead beneath the wheels. 



Passing Away. 



From the mountains wrapped in gloom, 

From the vales in vapor lost, 
From falling domes and desolate homes, 

And the dust of a shattered host, 
Rose on the night, in ethereal light, 

A wandering, weeping ghost- 
She floated away on the air, 

Away to the Beautiful Gate — 
Her brow, so fair, bewildered with care 

And the glory and gloom of fate ; 
And a wail went up that smote the stars — 

The wail of a dying State. 

She passed with the raving winds 

And a dash of torrent rains ; 
The black clouds rolled with enveloping fold 

O'er the shuddering hills and plains ; 

And a conquered people woke from their dream, 

And in darkness felt their chains. 

23 



Trampled to Death. 



A fair young body trampled to death — 
This beautiful, glorious Lady of ours ! 

Bring spices and wine and all the spring's breath, 
And bathe her with kisses and shroud her with 
flowers. 

O breasts whose twin lilies are purpled with blood ! 

O face whose twin roses with ashes are white ! 
O dead golden hair, at whose far splendor stood 

Millions of true souls entranced with delight! 

Wailing in silence, as brave men wail, 

An army of lovers around her stands, 
With fierce-bitten lips and brows all pale, 

With broken swords and with manacled hands ! 

24 



Gone For Ever. 



Think you that ever this love now slain 
Will start and breathe and blossom again ? 
That ever this hope, now sinking, will rise 
O'er a greener earth and bluer skies ? 

Have the old dead nations reappeared — 
The famed, the mighty, the loved, the feared? 
Has Carthage sundered the chain of the Fates ? 
Has Babel rebuilded her brazen gates ? 

Has Athens rerisen, beauteous and free, 
Planting her pearl-white foot on the sea? 
Or helmeted Rome with his iron sword? 
Or the Holy City that knew the Lord? 

No ! the nations live and die like men ; 

The old forms never revive again. 

Their life is merged in the nations to be — 

Lost as the rivers are lost in the sea. 
3 25 



Vindication. 



In the far Millennium of the world, 

In the ages of love and trust, 
When the battle-flags are for ever furled, 

And the cannon have crumbled to dust; 

When the halves of the globe are married mates, 

And freedom encircles the ball; 
When the happy union of willing States 

Is the only Union at all; — 

In the golden light which hallows the band 

That fought for such things to be, 

On the right and the left in glory shall stand 

The figures of Jackson and Lee ! 
26 



The Southern Mother. 



No more, I weep no more! 
With flowers I crown this sod ; 

I gave him, elate, 

To his native State, 
And I give him now to God. 
Weep, mothers ! weep no more 
For the souls of your gallant sons, 

Who scorned to be slaves, 

And sought their red graves 
In the flash of the Yankee guns. 

A glorious child was mine ! — 

A soul without blot or blur : 
He was blazoned with light 
Like a chivalrous knight, 

Resplendent from plume to spur. 

Weep, mothers ! weep no more 

For the souls of your gallant sons, 

27 



28 The Southern Mother. 

Who scorned to be slaves, 
And sought their red graves 
In the flash of the Yankee guns. 

He sees not what I see, 
Nor feels he what I feel. 

My hero, thank God ! 

Lies under this sod — 
Not under the tyrant's heel. 
Weep, mothers ! weep no more 
For the souls of your gallant sons, 

Who scorned to be slaves, 

And sought their red graves 
In the flash of the Yankee guns. 




How Long, O Lord? 



How long, O Lord ? how long 
This scourge shall we endure, 
This judgment swift and sure, 

Such grief, oppression, wrong, 

Disaster, crime and fraud ? 

How long, O Lord? 

'Tis Evil rules the land ; 

Faith wavers; Justice grieves — 
Her court a den of thieves; 

Hope drops her nerveless hand. 

Let Patience make us strong ! 

Lord ! Lord ! how lone ? 



i & 



The virtues all expire, 

Like flowers, once fresh and fair, 

In dense, mephitic air. 

When wilt Thou purge with fire, 

Or scatter with the sword? 

How long, O Lord ? 
3* 2 9 



Weary. 

Weary of the work, 

Weary of the play, 
Weary of the troubled night 

And the listless day; 

Weary of the praise, 
Careless of the blame; 

Weary of the ripe renown 
And the secret shame ; 

Weary of the hopes 
And the silly fears ; 

Weary of this hateful life 
And its fruitless years ; 

Weary of the world — 
Goodness, baseness, all : 

Let us see the face of death 
And hear the angels call ! 



30 



The Ways of God. 



The ways of God are hard to understand. 
He leads His loving people by the hand ; 
They faint; they die, and Evil rules the land. 

Through dark and thorny paths He leads us right. 
We follow, weeping, praying for the light, 
And lo ! He leads us into darker night ! 

He comes ! He comes !" continually they cry, 

And the vile ages of misrule go by. 

He does not come ! No sign is in the sky ! 

His weak ones weep and wail in every land ; 

He reaches out from heaven no naming hand ; 

His ways are dark. Oh who can understand ? 

31 



Perhaps in Us. 



Perhaps in us the darkness lies 

That seems to veil the world without; 
Perhaps our evils cause our doubt, 

And false opinions blind our eyes.. 

Could we divest our inmost heart 

Of pride and hate and love of power, 
Of the base Self that rules the hour, 

And the pale scorn that stands apart; 

Could we repent the wrong we've done, 
And all the wrongs received forgive, 
And, clothed with Christ, could truly live 

A nobler life beneath the sun ; 

New-born, new-blessed, with larger trust 

And kindling love for all mankind, 

In a free Union we might find 

That heaven was near and God was just. 
32 



The Sentinel at Arlington 

Unhappy, most unhappy, is the man 

Who stands at Arlington to guard the graves, 

And to forbid, with pointed bayonet, 

The trembling hands of mothers and of wives 

Bowed low with incommunicable grief, 

From dropping some small flower or little wreath 

On those marked "Rebel." 

Hiss him not, nor curse ! 

But cover with the charitable veil 

Of largest, sweetest pity ; for he stands 

Bearing the burden of his country's shame, 

The scorn of this and of all future times, 

Wherever human hearts are brave or good, 

And Christ's pale face looks pleading from his 

cross ! 

33 



Transitional. 



All is transitional ; 

Nothing is sure; 
Builder nor building, 

Neither endure. 

Mountains are crumbling; 

Valleys ascend; 
Churches are falling; 

Empires end. 

Truth is eternal, 

First-born of Heaven ; 
There let your homage 

Humbly be given. 

Where there is Goodness, 
Proffer your hand; 

Where there is Freedom, 
Firm by it stand; 



34 



Transitional. 35 

Where there is Evil, 

Turn from its shrine ; 
Where there is Madness, 

Drunk with new wine, 

Bearing your mantle, 

Averting your face, 
Cover its nakedness — 

Pray for God's grace! 




Losing to Find. 



Not he whose hopes are all fulfilled, 
Whose every wish is gratified, 

By stern disaster never chilled, 
In fiery furnace never tried ; 

Not he the happy, wise or great! 

But he who, torn and tempest-tossed, 
And bravely struggling with his fate, 

Finds a new life for that he lost. 

With schemes all scattered to the wind, 

With idols broken into dust, 
He feels fresh love for all mankind — 

In God, new faith and heavenly trust. 

From bitter ashes blooms the rose; 

From mouldering leaves the forests rise; 
Sweet spring from out the winter grows, 

And chaos shapes to paradise. 

36 



Clad in White. 



It may be, as our foes have said, 

Our judgments half approve; 
But the pale faces of our dead 
Rise from each silent, gory bed 
Whene'er they speak of love. 

Those gray-clad warriors round us stand, 

Sprung from a thousand fields — 
The pride, the glory of our land, 
Our joy, our grief, our Spartan band 
That perished on their shields. 

Can we forget ? Yea, Christians ! yea ! — 

Forget ! forgive ! unite ! 
For, clad in blue or clad in gray, 
Now mortal thoughts are purged away. 

Are all not clad in white? 

Shall our dark thoughts and evil state 

Pursue these souls above ? 

4 37 



38 Clad in White. 

These men for whose dear sakes we hate, 
Have they not passed the sun-bright gate 
And found the life of love ? 

In those serene, celestial spheres 

Where all contention ends, 
The foemen of all wars and years 
Strike hands, and, smiling through their tears, 

Are sworn eternal friends. 

Let us who feel these living hours, 

And bear these earthly woes, 
Unite in peace our loving powers, 
And crown each other's dead with flowers, 

Forgetting we were foes. 




Union. 

Unite these now discordant bands 
To build and bind a freer State ! 
Unite our hearts to consecrate 

With love the labor of our hands ! 

Against oppression, crime and war, 
Against the cruel, proud and base, 
Unite our wills in strong embrace ! 

Unite for justice, peace and law! 

Unite our hopes in heavenly mood 
To hail and kiss the coming light ! 
Our yearnings for the True unite !- 

Our loyal worship of the Good. 

Unite our powers for noble ends 
In the best ways our fathers trod ! 
Unite the loves that look to God, 

And the kind thoughts that make us friends ! 



LONGSTREET. 



Oh the blight of glorious days ! 

Eclipse of knightly deeds ! 
That Lee's "old War-horse"* ever should graze 

In a pasture with scurvy breeds ! 

Our gorge rises up at the sight ! 

We could curse him — but ah ! we note 
The great calm face that shone in the fight, 

And that bullet-wound in his throat.f 

Let us who have watched his rise 

And loved him, forgive his fall, 
And look at his life with tender eyes, 

For God only sees it all. 

* Longstreet's sobriquet in Lee's army. 

f Received in the battle of the Wilderness. 
40 



Re constr ucted. 



Oh yes ! we are reconstructed. 

And have sworn to obey the laws, 
And have buried deep — in our heart of hearts — 

The dear Confederate cause. 

We accept the great, new Nation, 

The Nation above the State. 
Its children have proved it brave and free ; 

Now let it be good and great. 

Oh yes ! we are reconstructed ! 

But our hearts beat quick and free 
When we hear the tune of the " Bonnie Blue Flag," 

Or the glorious name of Lee. 

And the men who lie dishonored 

By the rebel names they have given, 

Are the men we love, and their souls above 

Are white with the peace of heaven. 

4* 41 



Free. 

Yes ! we are glad they are free. 

Free let them ever remain ! 
Perish the wrongs of the past ! 

No curse, no bondage again ! 

Ring out the bells on the air ! 

Ring them from mountain to sea! 
Ring for the Night which has gone, 

And the Day which is to be ! 

Let the soldier sheathe his sword ! 

Let the Christian kiss his cross ! 
And all of us count with joy 

The gain we thought was loss ! 

And the skies will flash with light, 
And the hills resound again, 
" Glory to God in the highest ! 



Peace and good-will to men!' 



42 



Will Shine Again. 



As those who, wintering in the Arctic seas, 
Look round them vainly for the cheering sun, 
Gone, but not lost, behind their cold, brown hills, 
And in the gleaming snows, auroral lights 
And fulminations of the polar sky, 
Discern memorials of the living fire 
Of heaven, and prophecies of its return ; — 
So we, in sadness, but in patient hope, 
Standing among the mighty wrecks of war, 
Wild as the old upheavals of the world, 
Cast down, defeated, goaded, desolate, 
Look out beyond the darkness of despair, 
And see the bright pavilions of that God 
Who holds the axial lines of all the stars, 
Like threads, within his fingers ; and we know 
The light of liberty will shine again, 

Resplendent in a boundless sky of peace. 

43 



On the Death oe Robert E. Lee. 



The chieftains bewail their Chief, 
The wisest and best of them all ; 

And his old brigades are pale with grief, 
While a nation weeps at the pall ; 

For something has gone from our sight, 
Gone back to the starry spheres — 

Something that rarely sheds its light 
O'er the track of a thousand years — 

Genius and Virtue- entwined 

In loving and perfect embrace — 

The pure soul, shining for all mankind, 
And seeing God face to face. 

The sword has dropped from his hand ; 

The prayer has died on his lips ; 
A splendor has passed from all the land, 

And the States grow dark in eclipse. 

44 



On the Death of Robert E. Lee. 45 

Come, soldiers and Christians, all ! 

And weep o'er this dead man's face — 
This blended image of Caesar and Paul, 

This model of glory and grace. 

He needs not the cannon's boom, 
Nor the drum, nor the funeral bell. 

The world's great heart is this hero's tomb, 
And Fame is the sentinel. 

He lived without stain or fear, 
And to death no prey was given. 

The sunset at which we are weeping here 
Is a sunrise — hailed in heaven ! 




Wrong. 



We all were wrong, all wrong — 

The living and the dead ! 
Were wrong — the hardest word to say. 

The bravest word when said. 

Then wreathe our swords with flowers, 
Which first our tears have wet — 

The flowers for glory and for love, 
The tears for deep regret. 

We thought our swords were right; 

And they shall blaze in song. 
Our tears are nobler than our swords : 

May God forgive the wrong! 

4 6 




The Burial. 



Oh dig us a grave in the darkest woods, 

Or alone by the sounding sea, 
Or afar in the desert's solitudes ! 

And wide and deep let it be ! 

We will bury therein our evil past, 
In silence and sadness and shame ; 

The pride and the selfish loves that cast 
Their shadows upon our fame; 

The spirit that made and kept men slaves, 
The tears and the blood of the past, 

The madness that filled the land with graves, 
And the hate which dies at last. 

Our woes and our wrongs, let them buried be !■ 

The riot of torch and of blade, 

And Sherman's fire-shod march to the sea, 

And the desert Sheridan made ; 

47 



48 The Burial. 

And cast in that perfect dream we dreamed, 

Our glory with all its dates ; 
And the splendor of all the swords that gleamed 

For the trampled rights of the States. 

The flag we carried for four sad years — 

Let the flag over all be spread ! 
But first, embrace it and bathe it with tears 

For the sake of the gallant dead ! 

Then fill up the grave, and mark the place 

With a white stone graven Peace ! 
And let us all pray for God's sweet grace 

That wars for ever may cease ! 

And let us remember that nothing dies 

Which God has ordained to live ; 
That freedom shall reign beneath the skies, 

And the peace that God shall give. 



j*jg& 



Inevitable. 



One country, reaching o'er a continent; 
One happy people, good and wise and great; 
One language and one sacred bond of law; 
One flag, one liberty, one holy faith — 
The light, the love, the wonder of the world ! 
All this in the far futures I discern, 
Inevitable as the fires of heaven 
That into beauty warm the rounded earth — 
Inevitable as the life that starts 
From the deep bosom of the wintry snows, 
Or the sure breath of blossoms on the air, 
Or green and silver raiment of the spring, 
Or the far glimmer of that golden light 
With which the perfect Summer crowns her brow. 
5 49 




The Future. 



The Poet's heart's an early flower 
That feels the spring's prolific power 

Before all others feel it — 
A high, high cloud, whose purpling ray- 
Reveals the coming fire of day 

Ere lower things reveal it. 

A Moses, from some azure height, 
Illumined by supernal light, 

It sees the Land of Promise; 
It sees the world that is to be, 
That happy world we cannot see, 

For evil hides it from us. 

Despair not, faint not, aching heart! 

But bravely, meekly bear thy part 

Among God's suffering creatures, 

Though touched by every human pain, 

And kindling with a high disdain 

Of all ignoble natures. 
50 



The Future. 51 

The powers of God are not withdrawn, 
But work in silent sweetness on. 

Who made the world will save it; 
And, breathing from His heavens until 
He fashions all things to His will 

As He would have, will have it. 

The saints who have to glory risen, 
The martyrs from the stake and prison, 

Apostles, prophets, angels, 
Are leagued to fire the human heart 
To holier issues, and impart 

New life and new evangels. 

All evil things will disappear, 
And every voice that echoes here 

Be sweet as children's laughter; 
For Christ shall tread all curses down, 
And blessed Love shall take the crown, 

And rule the world thereafter. 

Then faint not, pause not, aching heart! 
But meekly, bravely do thy part 
To speed the futures coming. 



52 The Future. 

Our Christ-like yearnings are the powers 
Which sow the land with living flowers, 
And set the world to blooming. 

For Spirit is the final cause : 
Our spirits modify the laws 

Whereby the earth is moving. 
The tropic storms would cease to beat, 
The frozen poles would melt with heat, 

If all men's hearts were loving. 

Bright flowers will spring at every door 
When sweet affections outward pour 

To cause their gentle springing. 
When we become as angels are, 
We shall commune with every star, 

And hear the angels singing. 

Let spirits, angels, men combined, 
Adore the Universal Mind, 

The Father, Saviour, Giver — 
The Light of light, the Love of love, 
The All below, the All above, 

The All in all for ever! 







Bereaved 



Bereaved. 



I rose from the troubled dreams of night 
To read, at the morning hours, 

What God had written in letters of light 
In the open Book of the Flowers; 

But out of my soul, alas ! there came 

A mist of sorrow and pain, 
That blurred the pages of golden flame, 

And I pondered the lines in vain ! 

My heart — it failed like a trembling bird's, 

And I bitterly wept to see 
That God had either withdrawn His words, 

Or had hidden their meaning from me. 

55 




56 Bereaved. 



II. 



Whence came the troubled dreams of the night? 

And the mist of sorrow and pain, 
That God's own words in letters of light 

Seemed written for me in vain ? 

From sources within our souls we see 

The world which around us lies : 
The darkness of midnight may come to me, 

With the noon in my neighbor's eyes. 

The wars and famines, the wrongs and crimes, 

And the deeds of evil done, 
The baseness and bondage of all the climes 

Are clouds that blacken the sun ; 

But two little dead faces turned to the sky, 
And the dead hands clasped in my own, 

Struck the flowers from earth, the stars from on 
high, 
And God himself from His throne. 



Bereaved. 57 



III. 



Oh how can God be good and just, 
And hold the nations in His hand, 
And move the world by His command, 

And fill our souls with love and trust, 

If He permits, without control, 
The secret work of evil powers, 
That dim the stars and blight the flowers, 

And crush the heart and wreck the soul? 

Can He not guard, with sacred rest 
And peace, the little heaven that lies 
In the sweet face and tender eyes 

Of babes upon the mother's breast? 

What hope? What safety? What defence? 

How can His angels live secure ? 

How can His own high heavens endure? 
And where is His omnipotence ? 



5 8 Bereaved, 



IV. 



Oh why does the sunshine warm the earth 
And mock the green with a golden kiss ? 

Why comes the Spring with her childlike mirth 
And her fragrance to such a world as this? 

Where love is the prey of moth and rust, 
And death-worms feed on all that is fair; 

Where the sweet face falls away to dust — 
And the roseate limbs, and the golden hair; 

Where the soul in secret sorrow keeps 
Its inner world to the world unknown — 

A realm of shadows, in which it weeps, 
And of echoes, echoing moan to moan. 




Bereaved. 59 



V. 



The burden, the burden of soul ! 

The good and the evil at strife ! 
The heavens so high, so sweet, so far ! 

And this fearful riddle of life ! 

In the beautiful woof of the world 
A long, dark thread has crept; 

And tares were sown with the golden grain 
While some of the watchmen slept. 

God schemes to lead us aright, 
To redeem, reshape and recall — 

Unfelt perhaps when helping the most, 
Unseen when nearest of all. 

We may ponder and ponder in vain ; 

We may weep till our eyes grow dim : 
Oh, trust that God is Infinite Love, 

And leave the burden to Him ! 



6o Bereaved. 



VI. 



If God had taken my babes away, 

He'd have come with a chariot of fire, 

Or a cradle of cloud at break of day- — 
Pearl-bright, rising higher and higher. 

Am I to believe that God attains 

His ends by the powers of ill? 
That sorrows and terrors and deathly pains 

Are the agents which work His will ? 

Oh no ! though you preach till your steeples fall, 
And your pulpits are mould and rust. 

Oh no ! Though it came from David or Paul, 
I would trample the thought in the dust ! 



Bereaved. 61 



VII. 

Some angel came so near them both, 
He charmed them with his seraph face ; 

He lured them, led them, nothing loth ; 
He drew them to his heavenly place; 

And lo ! my sweet doves flew away, 

Lost in the light of perfect day. 

O little doves, that flew away 

And vanished in the golden light ! 

Come to me, sweet ones, day by day ! 
Be with me, loved ones, night by night !- 

Three forms, united though apart; 

Three faces and a single heart. 



^y) 




62 Bereaved. 



VIII. 

Had I not lost the light which flows 

From its sacred fount above, 
That heaven of light which kindles and glows 
Purer than lily, sweeter than rose, 

In the faces we dearly love, 

I ne'er had forgotten those lyrics of light 

In which God speaks through the flowers; 
I had studied their beauty from morn to night, 
Communing in pages so soft and bright 
With spheres that are wiser than ours. 




Bereaved, 63 



IX. 

Perhaps if now my heart were right, 
And all my ways, and if I trod, 
With patient feet, more near to God, 

This hateful blur would leave my sight; 

And every flower unfold some thought 
To cheer my soul and lift it higher; 
And gardens, lit with fragrant fire, 

Reveal the secrets I have sought; 

And violets, peeping from their nook, 

Or sweet verbenas in their bed, 

Would bring some message from the dead, 
Which I might read as in a book. 



64 Bereaved. 



I've heard sweet bells upon the breeze 

When none were ringing, 
And the soft sound of waving trees 

And wild birds singing, 

Though, in the woodland still and deep, 

No leaf was falling, 
And e'en the clouds were laid asleep : 

They were spirits calling. 

Oh, there are voices whispering 

Of friends departed ! 
Oh, there are angels comforting 

The weary-hearted ! 

Oh, there are cherubs, unseen doves, 

Bright faces peeping, 
Cooing, and kindling the old loves 

That set us weeping! 



Bereaved. 65 



XI. 

In God's cathedral, high and clear 
Above the morning's arch of fire, 

Angels are singing, and I hear 
My children singing in the choir. 



O tender voices, soft and sweet ! 

My heart uprising toward you soars. 
Vainly I drag my trembling feet, 

For shut are all the golden doors. 

They sing! I hear; I weep; I cry, 
" O sweet ones ! let me, let me in ! " 
The dark Accuser, standing by, 
Exultant whispers of my sin. 

" How canst thou dare, O guilty heart ! 
To hope these angels, free from stain, 
Such sensual creature as thou art 
Shall ever know or love again?" 



66 Bereaved. 

He knows my life : he scowls ; he jeers. 

His words are points of poisoned steel. 
He scoffs my prayers; he mocks my tears. 

Close by the golden doors I kneel. 

O living, loving God of all ! 

Let me once more these children meet! 
Or on Thy doorsteps let me fall, 

And crush my life out with Thy feet! 




Bereaved. 67 



XII. 

O'er the graveyard's sylvan scene, 
By the graves of turf and stone — 

Silent cages, sweet and green, 

Whence the little birds had flown — 

Often have I strayed for hours, 

Lost in reverie profound, 
Dropping tears and scattering flowers 

On each little lonely mound; 

Sharing many a kindred woe, 
Till my heart serenely stood, 

Sweetly strengthened in the glow 
Of a mutual brotherhood; 

Until Nature seemed more fair, 
God himself more just and wise, 

And the wide world everywhere 
Full of human sympathies. 



68 Bereaved. 



XIII. 

Oh heard you never, in early spring, 

A tender wail from the sweet, green woods? 

And a sigh from every blossoming thing — 
The deepest sigh from the youngest buds? 

Oh heard you never, in summer hours, 
The unseen sorrows wail o'er the land ? 

The winds that wept o'er the full-blown flowers, 
And waters weeping along the sand? 

O heard you never the mournful strain 
The autumn spirit sings as she grieves, 

In gray fields stripped of their golden grain, 
Or deep woods shedding their crimson leaves? 

Oh heard you never the wintry blast 

Whispering the cold, bright stars my woe — 

Freezing the pale-faced streams as he passed, 
And covering my little graves with snow? 



Bereaved. 69 



XIV. 

Does Time, which veils the rock with moss, 
And spreads the ivy o'er the wall, 

Conceal from us our deepest loss, 

Or bring some balm to soothe it all? 

Do we forget the souls we love 
When they are borne so far away? 

Do they, entranced with things above, 
Forget us in our bonds of clay? 

Or do we cease to stand apart, 
But, drawing nearer, nearer still, 

Become so blended, heart to heart, 

And thought to thought, and will to will, 

That grief is changed to soft regret, 
And we pursue our patient way, 

Content that we shall find them yet 
In perfect form, in perfect day? 



*jo Bereaved. 



XV, 

Oh yes ! some morn in the spirit-skies, 

If so the Maker shall please, 
I will see them again with purer eyes, 

And in fairer bodies than these — 

Will walk with my little ones, hand in hand, 
O'er the green of some heavenly mead, 

And, wiser than I, in that beautiful land 
Shall the little ones teach me to read; 

And kneeling together — oh, ravishing sight ! — 
We will read, with uplifted powers, 

What God has written, in letters of light, 
In the glorified Book of the Flowers. 




The Dead Soul. 



sflPrsSfl'^F'^ 



The Dead Soul 



Softly blows the summer wind 

Through the golden-fruited trees, 
Where the birds of every kind 

Warble blithely as they please. 
O'er the sky's ethereal ocean 

Glide the white-sailed clouds along; 
Down the hills, with arrowy motion, 

Rivulets whiten into song. 
Shining Nature, swiftly moving, 
Circles onward, living, loving — 
Nature, which is Man repeated, 
And by Man must be completed; 

For affections, truth and duty, 
Flowing from our human sphere, 

Turn to music, light and beauty, 

Form and motion round us here. 

7 73 



74 The Dead Soul. 

Alas ! alas ! 
For in the darkness of a narrow dell, 

Remote from all the silver springs of morn, 
In a deep grave, a circumscribing hell, 

Rankly o'ertopped with livid weed and thorn, 
Where the owls hoot and the serpents creep, 
Lies a dead Soul in its appalling sleep — 
The Soul we thought undying, 
Like a dead body lying, 
Shrouded and pulseless in its awful sleep ! 
Blind to the beauty with which life is crowned, 
And deaf to all the sacred world of sound. 

The desolate place is haunted 
By an Evil Spirit, who stands 
Silently clenching his hands, 
With his feet in the grave implanted — 
Stands like an ebony pillar tall, 
Without a motion or a sound, 
A shadow himself, but letting fall 

A darker shadow upon the ground — 
The Evil Spirit which drew the Soul 
Under his fierce and foul control, 



The Dead Soul. 75 

Which drank its blood and sucked its breath, 
And gave the remnant over to death, 
And stands, with hideous form and face, 
Haunting the fearful burial-place — 
A monumental shaft to tell 
The final victory of hell. 

Thus the Soul lies dead and cold 

In a spell it cannot break, 
Like a dead bird in the fold 

Of a coiled and cruel snake. 
Vainly the winds above it blow; 
Vainly the flowers stand all aglow, 
Or the clouds float, or the waters flow, 
Or the happy creatures come and go : 
It has no heart; 
It takes no part; 
But, dark and dead 
In its silent bed, 
What joy can it receive? what beauty can it know? 

Oh a painful thing it is to see 

The smallest flower drop from its tree, 

And to think it never more shall be! 



76 The Dead Soul. 

The saddest, sweetest watch we keep 
Is o'er a babe from its mother riven. 
The very angels who took it to heaven 

Must return to its cradle and weep. 

But exceeding all human grief 
Is the death of a Soul which has died of sin, 
The victim of passion and doubt, 

Of evil and wrong and unbelief, 
Perhaps a marble splendor without, 
And a reeking charnel within — 

A spirit bereft of heavenly breath, 

A world in chaos, void of light — 
Something which angels cannot see 
From the lucid depths of their purity, 

But shudder as they strain their sight, 
Start back, and call it nothing ! darkness ! Death ! 

Alas ! alas ! 
And said I that the Soul was dead? 
That its vital spark had fled? 
That it could not live again? 
Oh shallow, false and vain ! 
How could I lose the spiritual light 
That floods across my inner sight? 



The Dead Soul. 77 

Life is eternal ; 
Love is supernal: 
Love and life beat in the heart of decay. 

Nothing that is can cease to be, 
But, change as it may from day to day, 
It ever remains, by God's decree, 
A power, a form, a mystery. 
In uttermost bitter there is sweet; 
In coldest crystals there is heat; 
In ebon blackness there is light, 
And a day-germ in the sunless night. 
In everything we feel or see, 
From the mountain's crown to the valley's clod, 
From man to beast, 
From greatest to least, 
In nerve and vessel and bone, 
In water and iron and stone, 
There lurks some trace of elemental fire, 
Which will not let it quite expire, 
But gives it being, and draws it higher, 
And binds it to the Living God. 

Who then can save 

Our souls from the grave? 

7* 



7% The Dead Soul. 

He — none but He — who created and gave ! 
For this, in the shadowy ages gone, 

The God-Man clove the trembling spheres, 
Planted His awful brow with thorn, 

And watered His steps with tears ; 
For this He prayed on the mountain height, 
And blazoned the temple with words of light; 
For this He strove, 'mid the desert's glooms, 

Till the powers of darkness fell, 
And He raised the dead men out of their tombs, 

And the lost ones out of their hell. 

Sweet is the thought of resurrection ! 
Not of a radiant spring come back 
O'er the desolate winter's track — 
Not of a body bursting warm 
Out of the dust of the human form — 

But a new birth of the soul's affection — 
Powers awakened to nobler strife, 
Passions repledged to better life, 
Prayer recalling the Holy Name, 
Love rekindling its blessed flame, 
Light where shadows had been before, 
And the life that lives for evermore. 



The Dead Soul. 79 

God fills the world which He creates 
Like a great Heart, that palpitates 
With life and love to all His creatures, 
With life and love to the meanest natures 

He swiftly, subtly penetrates, 

Like lightning through- the cloud, 

The dark and chilly mould 

Where the Soul lies dead and cold 
As Lazarus in his shroud : 
For the faintest spark of good desire, 
The trace of elemental fire, 
The feeblest, faintest spark of love, 

So weak and small, unknown to all, 
Brings down the sun that shines above, 
Brings down the God whose name is Love. 

The Evil Spirit that bound the Soul 

In darkness shrinks away; 
The fearful night around the Soul 
Warms softly into day : 
God touches its eyes, 
And bids it arise ; 
His voice is heard ; 
Its life is stirred 



80 The Dead Soul. 

By the music that falls from Paradise. 
It breathes ! it weeps ! it prays ! 
The sun bursts forth in celestial rays ! 
It breaks its chain ! It lives again 

Beneath God's awful eye! 
Each creature lives the life He gives : 

When He withholds — we die ! 

The link that bound it in the chain 
Of endless being, replaced again, 
The shining Nature that round it moves 
Now mirrors its life and all its loves; 
And all the winds so softly blowing, 

The flowers serenely growing, 

The rivulets merrily flowing, 
The happy creatures coming and going, 

Are visible forms that tell 

Of the greater invisible — 
Mystical pictures that typify 
The thoughts divine which within it lie. 

It is the Soul which makes her own external : 
All things are outbirths from her inmost sphere. 



The Dead Soul. 81 

Sunshines of peace, and landscapes ever vernal, 
And wastes of winter come alike from her. 

The love of God, the loyalty we owe Him, 
Engrafted on our hearts, and fruitful there, 

Can make our outward life a noble poem 
By making first our inner life a prayer. 

Whatever may be in the land or the sea, 

Or the blue dome brooding above; 
What Nature reveals through her opening seals 

Of beauty or glory or love; 
What Art unrolls on her flaming scrolls, 

Or bards in music rehearse, — 
Are the shadows falling from our souls 

On the floors of the universe. 




PERSONS AND THINGS, 



^^ 



Montague the Pilot 



" Montague ! Montague ! fly from your post ! 
The flames will surround you ! the boat will be 

lost!" 
Urgently warning, his comrades thus spoke, 
Stricken with terror and stifled with smoke. 

Out from the pilot-house clearly there came 
Words that are deathless in beauty and fame, 
High o'er the tumult, the rush and the roar: 
" I'll stick to my wheel till we strike on the 
shore!" 

On went the burning boat, making for land — 
Burning, but guided by Montague's hand. 
All cheered as she struck; the flames mounted 
higher, 

And Montague's post was a column of fire. 

8 85 



86 Montague the Pilot. 

The Poet is scribe, and enrolls every name 
Of hero and martyr, and gives them to fame. 
O bravest in peril ! O greatest in soul ! 
Thou young river-pilot, stand first on my scroll ! 




The Duke's Revenge. 



The Duke and Duchess sat at the board, 
Never exchanging a look or word, 
Each by the other fiercely abhorred. 

The Duke was dark, with haughty air; 
The Duchess was pale, and oh so fair! 
And crowned with a crown of auburn hair. 

The Duke he quaffed his beaded wines — 
The oldest blood of the richest vines — 
From a golden cup with quaint designs. 

He took another and filled it full, 

A rough, white cup, uncouth and dull, 

A cup made out of a human skull. 

He reached it out with a cruel frown. 
Oh pale, so pale, has the Duchess grown ! 

She sighed and trembled, and drank it down. 

S7 



S The Duke's Revenge, 

The Duke made sign that the feast was o'er 
They moved along to her chamber door; 
The Duchess meekly walked before. 

The key was turned, and in she passed. 
A feeble light, o'er the chamber cast, 
Revealed a dungeon strong and fast. 

On the floor were unwashed stains of red; 
A skeleton dangled o'er her bed — 
A skeleton form without its head. 

Down on her knees the Lady bent; 
Loud through the lock the bolt was sent. 
That was the Lady's punishment. 

Such was her life from day to day, 

Till the crown of auburn turned to gray, 

And the spirit burst its bonds of clay. 




Death of General Charles Lee. 



" In the delirium caused by the fever, the last words that General 
Lee was heard to say were, ' Stand by me, my brave grenadiers ! ' " 
Life of General Charles Lee, by Jared Sparks, page 200. 

No ! no ! I am not dying ! 
I need no priestly cares ! 

Away ! away ! 

I will not stay: 
I'll join my grenadiers ! 

List to the booming cannon ! 
Tis music in my ears. 

See from this mound 

The battle-ground, 
And these — my grenadiers ! 

That shining, bristling column — 
What martial fire it stirs ! 

By dint and brunt 

We'll break its front ! 

Ready, my grenadiers ! 
8* 89 



90 Death of Geiieral Charles Lee, 

Charge at them now like meteors, 
Aflame from cap to spurs ! 

Hurrah ! 'tis done ! 

The point is won ! 
Hurrah, my grenadiers ! 

Those right-hand guns are silent : . 
The wind of fortune veers. 

Beat, beat the drums ! 

A rescue comes ! — 
Lee with his grenadiers ! 

Down with the British ruffians ! 
Down with the Hessian curs ! 

Follow me, all ! 

I'm shot !— I fall ! 
On, on ! my grenadiers ! 

Right on through smoke and carnage ! 
Nor let him flinch who hears 

The crunch of bones, 

Like crashing stones ! 
Right on, my grenadiers ! 






Death of General Charles Lee. 91 

Ha ! ha ! we've won the battle ! 
Now give your deafening cheers ! 

And when I die, 

Stand cheering by, 
My gallant grenadiers ! 

What means this wail of women ? 
What mean these sobs and tears ? 

How cold it blows ! 

How dark it grows ! 
Stand by me, grenadiers ! 




Little Lucy. 



Little Lucy, sweet and mild, 
Half a fairy, half a child, 
Slowly, softly laid away 
Underneath the fearful clay; 
Kisses on her little brow: 
Ah, the angels kiss her now! 
Roses on her little bosom — 
Her sweet self a broken blossom! 

Oh the world is cold and lone ! — 
Little Lucy dead and gone ! 
Little playthings put away — 
Things for tears, and not for play 
Little cradle rocked no more — 
All the little prattling o'er. 

Kiss her ; leave her, laid away 

Underneath the fearful clay; 
92 



Little Lticy. 



93 



Leave the roses on her bosom ! 
Kiss and leave the broken blossom ! 
Angel Lucy ! sweet and mild ! 
Beauteous angels, love my child ! 




TO SlVEDENBORG. 



Lost from her altars, Nature's noblest Priest! 

On earth ignored, traduced, misunderstood, 
Thou hast ascended to the eternal feast 

With thy co-laborers, the Wise and Good. 
Men yet too weak or blind the truth to see 

Would shroud thy grave in thickest pall of night, 

Where angels, with prophetic smiles of light, 
Have planted flowers of immortality. 

Like mountain-peak emerging from a flood, 

In clouds and darkness lone thou standest now, 

As to the ark one sacred summit stood 

When all the world was sunk in waves below ; 

But in the future, when the watery waste, 

By the great ocean of God's light displaced, 

Shall of its presence leave no mark to tell, 

Men in their vales shall view thee from afar, 

Towering serenely by the morning star, 

In height of glory inaccessible. 
94 



The Old Musician. 



Haggard and pale, the desolate old man 
Lay in the sunshine of the market-place 

One beauteous day in summer. 

That spot had been his only home for years, 
And the sweet faces of the friendly stars 
His only night companions. 

People were gathering curiously around, 
For a strange light came from the beggar's face- 
Death's solemn inspiration. 

" Goldoni ! pupil of my better days, 
Lend me a moment that dear violin 

Wherewith you ravish Naples ; 

" For I perceive the spirit of my youth 

Is mantling o'er me with the warmth and light 

And glory of the morning." 

95 



96 The Old Musician. 

He passed the bow across the trembling string, 
And, after some premonitory tears, 

Began a plaintive measure. 

The concentrated sorrows of his life 
Floated upon the soft Italian air 

In tender undulations. 

He played with eyes serenely turned to heaven — 
Goldoni kneeling silent at his feet, 

And the good people weeping. 

He paused and smiled : the silver cord was loosed ! 
And the weird voices of his breaking heart 
Died trembling into silence. 

His face kept smiling, while the angel band 
That bore the beggar from the rich man's gate 
Rose with his shining spirit. 



"jr. 



Under the Cherry Tree. 



They have wheeled the old man's easy-chair 

Under the blossoming cherry tree, 

For he still delights to hear and see 

What Spring is about in the open air ; 

For his heart is young, though his head is old. 

And the light around him is purple and gold. 

A bright-eyed boy is at his knee, 

And the old man's tremulous hands are laid 

Crown-like on his curly head — 

A picture beautiful to see, 

How age and infancy agree 

In loving, prattling sympathy; 

While down the snow-white blossoms fall, 

Brightly, softly as they can, 

Like blessings dropped by the Father of All 

On the winter and spring of man. 

9 97 



Orleanna. 

There never was such beauty, 

Such radiant grace as thine ; 
There never, never was such love 

And such despair as mine. 
If tears could e'er have won thee, 

They had not ceased to flow; 
If blood, it had been freely spilt, 

Oh long and long ago ! 

I laid upon thine altar 

A gift beyond all price— 
A true heart's worship. Tears and blood 

Are no such sacrifice. 
How can this heart forgive thee 

The witchery and the wiles 
That crushed it with such sweet, sweet words, 

And cursed it with such smiles ? 

Of all life's blooming promise, 
Of peace and hope bereft, 



Orleanna. 99 

The only solace of my soul, 

My dreams, sweet dreams, are left. 

In dreams I plead my longings, 
And thou dost not reprove; 

In dreams I press thee to my heart, 
And thou dost seem to love. 

Oh never from this parting 

We meet on earth again ! 
For I should give thee naught but love, 

Receiving naught but pain. 
Nor may we meet in heaven 

Through ages yet to be, 
Shouldst thou be still as beautiful, 

And still as cold to me ! 

Nay! nay! I could not love thee 

So well unless thou wert 
The mate to my unmated soul, 

The twin heart of my heart ! 
Some hateful spell is on thee, 

That here thou knowest me not; 
But we shall meet and love in heaven 

When this is all forgot. 



Farewell, O Sea/ 



Farewell, O Sea! For many happy hours 
Has my soul listened on thy golden beach 

To voices and to thunderings and to powers — 
Wisdom of angels couched in mystic speech — 

And watched the varying colors of thy face, 
The azure, blue and purple, green and black, 
And the fair ships upon their billowy track, 

And the curled clouds upon their shining race; 
And heard far off the movement of God's hand, 

And the low whisper of the coming storm 

Creep o'er the orbed glory of thy form, 

And wake thy muffled thunders on the strand. 

I shall not leave thee utterly behind, 

World of the bright blue wave and tossing foam ! 
Thy spirit shall go with me, like a wind, 

To the green stillness of my upland home — 



Farewell, O Sea ! 101 

Shall whisper, morn and evening, to my ear 
The mysteries and the splendors of the deep, 
Nor leave me in the dreadful dark of sleep ; 

For when I start, dream-haunted, cold with fear, 
The voices and the thunderings and the powers, 

Heard in no temples man has ever trod, 

Shall close around me in melodious showers, 

And lull my soul to perfect rest in God. 




Children at Play. 



Oh see! a morn in May! — 

A shiny, balmy, breezy one; 
The little children out at play 

On sweet, green landscapes in the sun, 
Searching for shells the rivulet's brim, 
Watching the silver minnows swim, 

Chasing the rainbow butterfly, 

Or mocking Echo's faint reply. 

O trustful, happy, guileless creatures ! 
How near ye are to angel natures ! — 
Content with what each day is given, 
And fed with manna fresh from heaven ! 

The little loves and charities, 

The sweet and gentle courtesies, 

Ye from each other thus evoke at play, 

And childhood's free and pure conditions, 

Its clear, angelic intuitions, 
1 02 



Children at Play, 103 

Its precious, untaught sympathies, 
And all its dear credulities, 

Are treasures inly stored away, 
Beyond the reach of moth and rust 
And all that turns our hearts to dust. 

Into their forms, like dew into the flower, 
The Lord distills a spiritualizing power, 
And blessings they become for ever — 
States of the mind which perish never, 
But, losing every tint of sadness, 
Come back with multiplying gladness — 
Germs of eternal happiness, 
Which never cease to grow and bless — 
Strength for the seasons of temptation, 
Means of eventual renovation, 
The links that bind us to the angels most, 
The light which may be hidden, but never can be 
lost. 




The Hunter's Horn. 



Oh sweet it was, on early summer morn, 

From Ivy Cliff, to hear the hunter's horn 

Burst on the air of dewy solitudes, 

And break the dreamy stillness of the woods ! 

Then die away, receding from the ear, 

Where none but fox or startled hare could hear. 

The winds, awaking, sprang in brisk array, 

And broke the rolls of silver mist away; 

The river slowly brightened into view; 

The passing boatman gave his wild halloo; 

The screaming hawk returned it as he flew; 

The wood subdued it to a muffled moan, 

And Echo muttered on her couch of stone. 
104 




Before and After the Battle. 



Is it the frost which glitters so white ? 

Is it the wind in yonder glen ? 
No ! no ! Those are tents in the early light, 

And that is the march of armed men ! 
Bright o'er an army the morning shines, 

Glinting as o'er a ruffled lake; 
Dark move the cannon along the lines, 

Like hurricane clouds before they break. 
Over the hill and over the vale, 
Soldierly voices shout on the gale. 
Float, banners ! float ! bright as a sunset ! 
Blow, bugles ! blow ! blow for the onset ! 

Is it a ruin, old and gray, 

That glimmers in dusky twilight so — 
A ruin whose walls and people lay 

Mingled together in dust below — 

O'er which a moon of lurid red 

Wanders in smoky vapor lost? 

105 



106 Before and After the Battle. 

Oh no ! 'tis the shadowy field of the dead 

And the wreck of a broken host ! 
Over the hill and over the vale 
The soldierly voices died on the gale. 
The bugles shall rouse them — never ! oh never ! 
Droop, banners ! droop ! folded for ever ! 




Music all the Day. 



Give me music all the day! 

Bring, to cheer the pearly morn, 

Sounds that drive our cares away- 
Trilling pipe or jocund horn, 

Whispering wind among the trees, 
Carol of contented bird, 

Children laughing as they please, 
Bleat of flock or bell of herd. 

When the burnished noon comes on, 

And the silvery cloudlets shine, 
In the forest shades, alone, 

Let me by the brook recline, 
While the cool waves, on their march, 

Twinkle round the twisted root, 
While I fill the sylvan arch 

With the sound of liquid flute. 

When the torch of twilight fades, 

And the dusky air is still, 

107 



108 Music all the Day, 

Let me, from the shadowy glades, 
Hear the lonely whip-poor-will, 

While sweet Reverie sits remote, 
Fixed upon her favorite star, 

And young Love's persuasive note 
Trembles on the light guitar. 

When the shadow of the earth 

Ushers night and darkness in, 
When the songs of heavenly birth 

Echo from our spirit-kin, 
Let the toll of steepled bell 

On the aerial tissue float, 
And the organ's solemn swell 

Heavenward pour its pleading note. 




The Old Country Church. 



Upon a hill, remote from busy life, 
Embosomed in a brotherhood of trees, 
The ruined church appeared. The wooden stile 
Had rotted to its fall ; the leaning fence 
Creaked in the wind of summer; grass had grown 
Across the path and ventured to the door; 
Luxuriant boughs pressed on the swagging roof, 
Which, like the face of some old rock, appeared 
Rugged and brown, and covered o'er with moss 
Dripping with moisture. 

Through the shattered panes 

The swallow passed with straw upon her bill, 

Or earth-worm for her young. The prowling poor, 

Or passing emigrants hard by encamped, 

Had broken the shutters for their evening fire. 

The humble graves, no longer decked with flowers, 

The head-boards gone, the foot-stones all displaced, 

Were sunken deep, and full of withered leaves. 
10 109 



no The Old Country Church. 

The slender railing which had once enclosed 
The separate family had fallen down, 
And let the intruder in. Rankly the weeds 
O'ertopped the battered monuments, and hid 
The rural records of forgotten things. 

Such was the spot; and there in autumn-time, 

When parting sunshine clad the distant hills 

In all the golden drapery of eve, 

Have I surveyed the scene, and, unappalled 

By the unmoving spectres of the place — 

Silence and Desolation — have called up, 

By sweet imagination's magic power, 

The long-entranced spirit of the past 

For my companion. Warming Memory 

Relit the pleasing pictures that for years 

Were latent on the canvas of the soul. 

The vestiges of sad decay were gone, 
And all was new and bright and beautiful — 
As the whole world appears to childish eyes — 
And the sweet Sabbath brought the eager crowd 
To the old church again. The rustic vehicles 
Groaned o'er the stony road. Along the fence 



The Old Country Church. in 

And by the trees the patient horses stood. 

The plain old elder of the flock was there, 

Close to the desk, and lined the ancient psalm; 

The portly matron in her snowy cap, 

Slyly observant of the pranking boy; 

The bare-armed infant on the nurse's knee; 

The buxom girls, unconscious of their charms, 

Or archly imitative of the town; 

The awkward stripling, whose untutored face 

Betrayed his artless love; the minister, 

With kindly look and gentle word for all, 

Austere and chilling only in his creed. 

I heard the drone of the concluding prayer, 

And the soft quaver of the simple hymn, 

Whose echoes lingered round the jutting eaves, 

And dipped away into the quiet wood. 

Then, with the glimmering of the twilight hour, 
The spell would break, and the approaching shades 
Unpeople the old church again. 

But still, 
Though human footstep rarely breaks the calm, 
Nature hath left her sounds and colors there; 



ii2 The Old Country Church, 

And many beautiful forms of sylvan life 

Surround the spot, and evermore maintain 

Inaudible worship of the Deity. 

The birds fulfill their offices of love 

In every nook : the tender stock-dove coos 

All the bright noonday from the rustling oak ; 

The truant bee and velvet butterfly 

Flit o'er the rugged mounds ; from bench to bench 

The cautious spider weaves his filmy snare; 

The enameled serpent by the crumbling step 

Enjoys the sunny beam; in the still night 

The dreary owl and lonely whip-poor-will 

Call to each other on the shuddering air; 

The dews come softly to the hoary walls, 

And moonlight sleeps upon the silent floor. 



itw&Pj 




Marie 



Marie 



Love, sorrow and death ! the old, sad story ! — 
Old as the tides, old as the march of the sun, 
Old as our life, whose woes begun 
Soon as the Maker's work was done, 

With its infinite beauty and glory. 

The tale of love so warmly plighted, 

Of love and truth so fast united, 

So dream- enraptured, heaven-befriended, 
Flush with joys and visions splendid; 

Then of love betrayed and blighted, 

Truth perverted, slain and lost, 

Souls adrift and passion-tossed, 

And the fall from bliss supernal 
Down through deepening glooms to shame and 
death eternal. 

What strange, blind gods have risen on high, 

Who let their shafts of vengeance fly, 

"5 



n6 Marie. 

Aimless, heedless how they strike 
On the evil and good alike, 
Till Nature feels, in her secret springs, 
The dread uncertainty of things ! 
Until our souls, bewildered, cry, 
Are there any gods on high? 

Love conceals the poisoned dart 
In a pure and blameless heart — 
Blameless as the thought that lies 
In a laughing infant's eyes, 
Whom stern death will soon surprise; 
Pure as the cold, white stars are pure, 
The tremulous stars that still endure, 
Trembling and pale and insecure, 
In the cold, .white silence of the skies. 

Relentless voice of doom ! 

Inexorable fate ! 
Whence do the fire-winged furies come — 
From hell below or heaven above ? — 
That scourge us with the things we love, 
And bind us to the things we hate? 
Tyrannic doom ! resistless fate ! 



Marie. 117 

Oh who can stay the tides or blanch the sun? 
Or who escape, however swift he run, 
The fierce, wild sea's pursuing form, 

With wind and surf, in deepening roars, 
Hurling the old, ancestral storm 

Upon our trembling shores? 

Therefore stood Marie on the bridge, 
In the cold, dark night, 
Clad all in white — 
Standing as on the topmost ridge 
That hides the future from the past, 
Casting a look, forlorn, aghast, 

On the town with its glimmering light; 
Therefore she saw in the waves below, 

In the cold, dark dash of their wintry roll, 
Some sweet, sweet solace for human woe, 

Some sweet, sweet balm for a wounded soul. 
Something sweeter than life or love 

That drew her down against her will! 
And there passed a gleam in the air above, 

And a splash beneath — and all was still! 



u8 Marie. 

What fearful visions had she seen ? 

From what white terrors had she fled? 
What crimes and vengeance tracked her feet ? 

What thunders muttered o'er her head ? 
Ah, death is dark, and life is sweet ! 
The skies are bright ; the earth is green ; 

But all is naught if love be dead. 
However strange the world may be, 
And life, and death, and all we see, 
Love is the crowning mystery! 

She loved! she knew not how or why: 
It seemed to come through ear and eye; 
It seemed to come the common ways — 
The old, sad tale, the common wail. 
It was her doom ! Her doom ! we cry. 
It was the curse of ancient days ! 

In form and feature he must have seemed 
A human splendor, brave and strong, 
Whose look was light, whose speech was song, 
The man of whom this maiden dreamed, 
Who crossed her path and wooed her long, 
Fulfilled her dream, and wrought her wrong. 



Marie. 119 

He had a thousand wily ways 

To bend her thoughts, to fix her gaze. 

She gazed upon him till the crystal sphere 

O* the whole earth contracted to a span ; 
She gazed till all things seemed to disappear, 

And left but him — the ideal man ! 
Home, friends and kindred passed from sight, 

Her earlier dreams and loves forgot ; 
The whole world's beauty and delight 

She saw as if she saw it not ; 
Men r women, all to her were naught; 

Summer and winter, morn and night, 
Became impalpable as thought; 
Earth, sky and heaven were vague and dim, 
Except as haloes circling him. 
And so he stood alone — alone with her — 
He as a god, she as his worshiper. 
She heard his voice alone — obeyed his call. 
He smiled ; he said he loved : she gave him all ! 

Like the base bee that sucks the flower, 
And steals its sweets one sunny hour, 
Then spreads his wing and flies away 
To other loves and other prey, 



1 



1 20 Marie, 

The spoiler drew her life— and fled. 
Then all the world to her was dead, 

For he had been the world to her. 
Bewildered, stricken, forth she went, 
With love her curse and punishment, 

Asking of none a sigh or tear. 
The cold, dark river on its roll 
Divined the secret of her soul, 
Held up its wild and glimmering light 
To show the archway through to Night, 

And gave its sands for sepulchre. 

Alas ! alas for the ignoble dearth 

Of heavenly natures, that a soul 

Which might have shone, from pole to pole, 
A star of beauty, a celestial birth, 

Was flouted, branded, cast away, 

The coarse sensation of a day, 

A jest, a jeer, a text to prove 

The madness of too great a love ! 
Alas ! alas ! 
No pale, sweet Christ was walking on the earth 

To reach His hand and lift her life above ! 



Marie. 121 

Bury her on some lonely beach, 
Far from human sight or reach, 

Far from the world which pitied not, 

That made her doom and mocked her lot. 

No fellowship in life it gave; 

She does not ask it in the grave. 

Bury her on the yellow strand, 

Where the gray sea converses with the land 
In solemn, slow, majestic speech. 

Let no flowers above her grow, 

No marble rise with stately glow, 

No wild-bird sing, no poet weep, 

No fragrant south wind rock her sleep; 

No turf, no stone, nor even a shell 

In which the pearl sea-fairies dwell, 

Point out the spot and give some trace 

That this was one of the human race. 

Leave her alone on the yellow strand, 

Alone with the sea and the salt sea-sand, 

And the God who made both sea and land. 



122 Marie. 

Marie ! cursed, betrayed, forsaken ! 
My soul, in righteous arms for thee 

And thy pale sisterhood, has taken 
The utmost vows of chivalry. 

1 scorn the powers that have undone thee ; 
Disdain the sentence passed upon thee; 
Throw down my glove for thy defence 
Against the world's malevolence ; 

Defy thy scoffers, small and great, 
And all the secret strength of fate; 
Wear thy sad tokens day and night, 
And challenge Heaven itself for justice and for 
right. 

Until this life shall be regiven, 
The woof of being all unshred, 
And stripped of every fatal thread, 
And then rewoven with heavenly care, 
'Till all the tissue's bright and fair, 

And this sweet soul be saved in heaven — 
There is some taint upon the sun, 
Some work divine that's left undone, 
Some imperfection in the sky 
Through all its crystal dome on high, 



Marie. 123 

Some secret wrong, some coming blight, 

A woe, a menace and a curse, 
And a shadow that stains the crown of Light 

On the God of the universe ! 




^35 




Etherea 



Nocturne. 



Moonbeams, moonbeams everywhere ! 
On the water, in the air, 
On the earth and at my door, 
Round the walls and on my floor ! 
Hence, ye spirits of the night, 
With your pale, sepulchral light; 
Ghosts of sunbeams lingering here ! 
Leave me to my fancies dear. 

Seek the glimmering' water's face, 

Kiss the shadows from their place ; 

When the subtle shadows fly, 

In the water paint the sky. 

O'er the misty meadow creep, 

Charm the little flowers to sleep ; 

Make the purple, red and blue 

Glisten whitely in the dew; 

Make the white ones still more white 

On the splintered oak alight; 

127 



128 Nocturne. 

Tip the church's spire afar 

With the glory of a star ; 

Glide into the garden bower; 

Glimmer round the mouldering tower; 

Pry into the sparrow's nest 

At the brood around her breast; 

Peep into the deepest shade 

Whence the owlet's cry is made; 

Hang a shroud on aspen tree, 

Rustling, swaying fitfully; 

Or to sleeping churchyards hie, 

And on spectral marbles lie. 

Hence ! your nightly vigils keep ! 
Leave me to the dreams of sleep ! — 
Sleep, which is our mental night ; 
Dreams, its pale, sepulchral light — 
Ghostly shadows of our thought, 
Strangely on our being wrought ; 
Glimmering o'er our deep repose 
With their weird, ideal shows — 



Nocturne, 1 2 9 



Some in beauty, some in pain- 
All to be dissolved again 
To chaotic forms away, 
At the touch of mental day. 




Sea Voices. 



My boy and I walked on the beach, 
And listened to the treacherous sea — 

The treacherous sea with double speech- 
One voice for him and one for me. 

One was a Siren's, pure and sweet, 

Faint as the dip of silver oar, 
A murmur rippling to our feet, 
" I'm coming, coming to the shore ! " 

One was a Shadow's, borne away, 

Half lost amid the breaker's roar, 

A low, sad voice, that seemed to say, 

" Oh never, never, nevermore ! " 
130 




The Angel of Morning. 



I cannot discover my face to your sight, 

Nor tell you the name which in heaven I bear; 

My face cannot beam in your world's dusky light; 
My voice cannot sound in your thick, heavy air ; 

But, breathing the life of an age which has gone, 
You may call me Aurora, the far-shining one, 

Who dwells in the shell-tinted halls of the morn, 
And sits like a page at the feet of the sun. 

I watch o'er the beautiful souls who begin 

The morning of life undefaced by a stain, 

And o'er those who awake from the dark night 

of sin 

To the spiritual morning, like children again. 

131 




Listening. 

The past and future join their happy hands 
Across the shining present. I have stood 
In lonely contemplation on the hills 
Beneath a canopy of cold, gray cloud, 
Mantled against the winter wind, and felt 
The tender presence of those secret powers 
That bear the links of Nature's golden chain, 
And could distinguish, with delighted ear, 
Voices on either side. 

From deep ravines, 

Fainter than rustle of the dry, red leaves, 

Came the last quaver of the harvest-song, 

Which the tanned reaper sang amid the fields 

Glinting with sunshine ; while from greenest meads, 

Through azure vistas, shadowy, remote, 

The fairy bugle of the frolic Spring, 

Calling the bright-eyed flowers about her feet, 

Echoed like water rippling in a dream. 
132 



Spiritual Vision. 



Oh turn into my palace 

From thy dusty, weary way ! 

A cup of wine shall soothe thy heart, 
And music glad thy stay. 

My crystal gate is open, 

On golden hinge ajar; 
And down the odorous avenues 

My portals gleam afar. 

The myrtles and magnolias 

Give out aeolian tones, 
And statues twinkle through the trees, 

All wrought of precious stones. 

The mystic soul of Beauty 
Shall meet thee face to face; 

For Peace, the angel, fixes here 
Her charmed dwelling-place. 

12 133 



134 Spiritual Vision. 

" What braggart words of folly 

Are these thou speak'st to me? 
Thy sounds, old man, I cannot hear; 
Thy sights I cannot see. 

" Thy wine is naught but water, 
Dipped from the rustic spring; 
Thou hast no music here, unless 
The birds may choose to sing. 

" I see a lowly cottage, 
Instead of kingly hall; 
Thy avenues and sculptured gems — 
I see them not at all. 

" The mystic soul of beauty 
Is a phantom of thy brain ; 
Thy angels must be Discontent 
And Poverty and Pain." 

Now by thy thought outspoken, 
Poor wanderer, I discern 

How much of love thou hast to feel, 
Of wisdom hast to learn. 



Spiritual Vision. x 35 

Let God command thy spirit; 

Let God direct thy feet; 
Die daily to thy former self, 

And find the death is sweet. 

Go out among thy fellows 

With looks and words of cheer; 

Return the joyful, smile for smile — 
The mourning, tear for tear. 

Seek all thy life in others, 

And then come back to me, 
And thou shalt hear what I have heard, 

And see what I can see. 

The inner world of splendor 

Is sealed to carnal eyes : 
Invisible to selfish man 

Is saintly paradise. 

But, like the beauteous Dryad 

Within the waving tree, 
There is a world within the world 

The good alone can see. 



This Human Soul. 



ON THE BIRTH OF A CHILD. 

{Contra Darwin.) 



This Human Soul, 

This flesh-engirdled flame, 

This microcosm of the whole! 
What seer's or sage's erudition 
Can satisfy the child's petition, 
And tell us whence, and how, and why it came ? 

Not in the present sensuous sphere 
Hath this mysterious life begun : 

The meanest flower that blossoms here 
Was once an essence in the sun; 

And naught of Nature's dead material 

Is woven into our woof ethereal. 
136 



This Human Soul, 137 

Through inner realms of light 

This star descended by a path unknown, 

Invisible in its superior zone, 
Until it burst thus beautiful and bright 
Upon our happy sight — 

Its past and future seen of God alone. 

Rejoice, thou happy Human Heart, 
Whene'er a life from God's life flows apart, 
Self-conscious, knowing, loving, seeing, 
And feels on earth its individual being ! 

We stretch our welcoming hands to thee, 

Thou heaven-derived humanity ! 

Thou perfect image of the boundless whole, 

Immortal Human Soul ! 

How holy is thy birth ! 
Some star our sense discovers not 
Enunciative points the spot; 
And angel choirs are chanting clear 
To unseen spirits kneeling near, 

" Glory to God, and peace on earth ! " 



Streamlet Speaks. 



I would not leave this meadow, 
And hasten to the sea; 

I would not leave this meadow 
With its floral witchery. 

The sun is bright and gentle; 

His kiss is sweet and warm, 
And he mirrors in my bosom 

The glory of his form. 

Along my banks so mossy 
The roses have their seat — 

The roses and the lilies — 
And I sparkle at their feet. 

I sing to them so softly, 

They bend and smile to me. 

Oh I cannot leave this meadow 

With its floral witchery! 
138 



Rosebud and Sunbeam. 



A rosebud unfolded its leaves to the view, 
All crimson with beauty, all silvered with dew, 
Like a soul which has fallen from happier spheres, 
Yet smiling with hope through its penitent tears. 

A sunbeam came down to the heart of the rose, 
Like a thought which illumines the mind where it 

glows ; 
Like an angel come down from the bright world 

of bliss 
To commune with some dearly-loved spirit in this. 

When homeward the sunbeam retreated at even, 

The soul of the flower went as fragrance to heaven : 

So the heart which has cherished some truth from 

above 

Ascends with that truth to the regions of love. 

139 



Inmost. 



There is not, in this world of sin, 

A soul so deeply sunk therein — 

Thronged though it be with crimes and cares. 

Revenges, malices, despairs, 

However dire the phantoms there, 

However pestilent its air, 

However dreary its abodes, 

And dedicate to demon-gods, — 

But in its thoroughfares, night and day, 

There ever is some golden ray, 

Like a sweet child from home astray — 

Some light of heaven, some fragment thence 

Of primal love and innocence, 

Which keeps the angels on its track 

To love and lure and lead it back. 
140 




Phantasies. 



The spirits of Desire and Discontent 
Go ever with us through our busy life. 
Seeking for something which we cannot find, 
Yearning for something we can ne'er possess, 
We feel their secret presence, and they cast 
Their subtle shadows o'er our sweetest sleep. 
'Tis thus our dreams are colored. 

The old brook, 

Whereby I spent my young vacation hours, 

With a loved playmate's sweet, alluring voice, 

Called me to ramble with it down the glen, 

Twirling the leaves, and kissing all the flowers ; 

But when I almost reached its sparkling brim, 

The voice went farther down the dale, receding, 

Which I pursued o'er rugged rocks, alone. 

Till I despaired, for it receded still, 

Smiling through trees, and calling as it ran. 

141 



i4 2 Phantasies. 

Then saw I Florence in the orchard walk — 
Florence who in my waking dream was dead — 
Move o'er the ground like music, bright as June, 
Sporting, with golden locks and childish joy, 
About the rose-red apples. And I went 
Searching and sighing through the mellowed shade, 
From path to path, from tree to tree, in pain — 
Searching and sighing, for the airy form 
Had vanished like a sunbeam. 

Last I heard, 
Remote but clear, a bell of strangest sound 
Ringing and ringing, in a dark, green wood, 
Such sweet, such sad, such winning cadences, 
That eagerly with tears I followed them, 
But chased the flying echoes all in vain, 
And stood in ancient solitudes of shade, 
Silent and wonder-riven, while, overhead, 
Angels were whispering in the summer air. 



Substance and Shadow. 



I see a bright and joyous child astray 
Along the brooklet in a vernal meadow; 

I watch their wondrous harmonies at play, 
As one might watch a violet and its shadow. 

Is not the bordering verdure, sweet and wild, 
Symbol of something in the living creature? 

The thoughts and loves and raptures of the child 
In flower-forms imaged on the face of nature? 

Those sounds which make the listener's heart 
rejoice, 

Those jubilant notes upon the ether flying, 
Have, in the rippling stream, an answering voice, 

Like their own echoes from the earth replying. 

Those smiles of innocent beauty, sign and seal • 

Of angel-presence in the young affections, 

Are like these rainbow sparkles which reveal 

The loving skies in thousand-fold reflections. 

143 



144 Substance and Shadow. 

From ancient hills, beneath auroral beam, 
Crept out the brook with dewy kisses laden, 

Pure, bright and silent, like the human stream 
Forth stealing from the golden gates of Eden. 

Each in its sphere of action onward pours, 
Lapsing away from early loves and blossoms, 

Till strange creations rise upon their shores, 
And mighty shadows sink into their bosoms. 

The human channel wears into the grave, 
Losing on earth its individual motion ; 

While its sweet symbol, the compliant wave, 
Gives up its being to the wasteful ocean. 

But lo ! the halcyon vision reappears ! 

An angel stands beside the crystal river: 
Our lives, our loves in the celestial spheres, 

Are pictured in the stream of life for ever. 

The beauteous robe of truth is metaphor. 

Substance is dual in its every feature: 
Our souls are shadowed all around us here, 

Our lives repeated in the forms of Nature. 



Nature Consoling. 



Oh seek a pleasant valley 

When thy soul is full of care, 

And a forest where the lulling wave 
Can ripple in thy ear ; 

Where the winds are softly sighing 
Through the dark and stately pines, 

And the light upon the verdant ground 
In broken splendor shines ; 

Where the little birds, unfettered, 
Warble at their golden ease, 

And the squirrel leapeth light and free 
Among his native trees. 

The freshness and the silence 

And the beauty will impart 

Their balm unto thy fretted thought, 

Their peace unto thy heart. 
13 HS 



146 Nature Consoling. 

The lofty mountain waters 
Are shattered to and fro, 

And find no peace until they glide 
Into the vale below. 

In quiet woods and valleys, 
At twilight soft and sweet, 

Oh list to Nature's gentle voice, 
And sit at Nature's feet 

With lowliness of spirit! 

So shall thy soul be blessed, 
And all the fragrant airs of heaven 

Stir newly in thy breast. 




Voiceless. 

The soft pearl flush of early day, 

The glimmer of the sea, 
The high, blue mountains far away, 

The night's immensity; 

The mind of God in nature wrought, 

The music unexpressed, 
Our poesy unshaped to thought, 

Our restless dream of rest; 

The depths from which we cry in vain, 

Our warring heaven and hell, 
The heights we perish to attain, 

The Unattainable! 

147 



Receding Angels. 



O scenes of my childhood ! ye cannot restore me 
The light and the peace of my life's early dawn ! 

The gardens, the meadows, the hills are before me ; 
The spirit which gave them their glory has gone. 

The roses are blooming, by Zephyr still haunted, 
And Evening all dreamily sits by the stream : 

But ah, not the roses my sweet mother planted ! 
And ah, not the evening when love was the 
dream ! 

The best of the angels who love us and guide us 
Attend upon childhood and gladden its way; 

But subtly the demons of evil divide us, 

And lead the young flock from their shepherds 
astray. 

Though far from their care and in spite of their 

warning, 

We wander away on a desolate track, 
148 



Receding Angels. 149 

Those angels of youth on the hills of the morning 
Stand star-like in beauty, and beckon us back. 

So the scenes of our childhood can never restore us 

The light and the peace of our life's early dawn. 

The gardens, the meadows, the hills are before us ; 

The angels who loved us and led us have gone ! 
13* 




In the Depths. 



We tread a dark and cheerless mine 

Unnumbered feet below, 
Where summer mornings never shine, 

And violets never grow. 

Yet far above, as fancy deems, 
Commingled sounds we hear: 

Music of birds and winds and streams 
Falls faintly on the ear. 

Such is our home — this dreary earth 

To our dark natures given; 

But voices of immortal birth 

Come to our souls from heaven. 
*5o 




O Sea-breeze / 



O Sea-breeze, rising from the south, 
With shadowy feet upon the sea, 

And fragrant kisses on thy mouth ! 
Beloved one, bring some balm to me ! 

The sea-birds flutter with delight 
At the cool rushing of thy wing. 

Oh soothe my aching heart to-night 
With dews from many a silver spring ! 

Blow, blow the sands about the beach, 
And blow the light leaves from the tree! 

Clear through my spirit reach, oh reach, 
And sweep a thousand thoughts from me!- 

A thousand thoughts of grief and pain, 

And old, sad memories dark and deep ! 

Bring, bring forgetfulness again, 

And one sweet hour of childhood's sleep! 

151 



Descensus Avernl 



A youth in the land of immortals, 
Engirdled with love like a zone, 

In the sunshine and glory of morning, 
Went dreamily wandering alone — 

Far down to the borders of Aidenn, 
Far down to the crystalline walls, 

O'er which, to the spaces beneath them, 
God's light like a cataract falls. 

And dreamily thus he had wandered 
From the centre of heaven so far, 

That the sun of its holy meridian 
Had dwindled almost to a star. 

He gazed on the verdurous tissues 

That glittered and grew at his feet, 

When he saw a most beautiful serpent 

Glide out of its hidden retreat — 
152 



Descensus Averni. 153 

A rainbow of serpentine colors, 

Gold, silver and crimson and green — 

So like to the herbage resplendent 
That its motions were scarcely seen. 

It glided away like a spirit, 

Like a thought we cannot retain; 

And the youth, of its splendor enamored, 
Sought after it over the plain. 

He lost it in grasses and blossoms 
That swayed in the luscious breeze, 

And he came to a granite fountain 
In the shadow of odorous trees — 

A font with a sculptured basin 

Of paradise-water there, 
As placid as if it was frozen, 

As lucid as if it was air. 

Then a dove with fluttering pinions 

Alit on his outstretched arm, 
With the plaintive wail of a mother 

Who would shield her child from harm. 



154 Descensus Averni. 

Oh far from his holy meridian ! 

He brushed the sweet bird away — 
The bird which had seen how the serpent 

Encoiled in the water lay. 

Forgetting the ethereal nectars 

Which God as his drink had given, 

He drank through his pearl-bright fingers 
This marginal water of heaven. 

What a change in the world within him ! 

What a change in the world without! 
The old path he could find no longer, 

However he turned about. 

He saw naught but an iron portal 
That led to a desolate moor, 

A region of stone-heaps and shadows, 
And he passed through the iron door! 



The Strange Song. 



I dreamed of a Song which had magical power 

To soften all souls into tenderest thought. 
In all things of earth evermore from that hour 

Some trace of its melody yearning I sought; 
But little rewarded my labor and pain, 

Nor art's inspiration, nor beauty's dear thrall ; 
Though deep were the feeling and sweet were the 
strain, 

The lost Song was deeper and sweeter than all. 

One day as I walked in the woodland alone, 
Nor thought of that music, to frame it or find, 

O'ershadowed by sorrows not wholly my own, 
But bearing the burden with some of my kind, 

A bright little bird flew so swiftly by me, 
That only a sunshiny twinkle it seemed; 

It sank in the leaves of an evergreen tree, 

And sang me the beautiful Song I had dreamed ! 

*55 



God in the Garden. 



The voice of God in the garden 
I hear in the cool of the day. 
" Where art thou, my son ? 
What hast thou done?" 
It chidingly seems to say. 

I look to the beautiful woman 
He gave me to love and to trust. 

She weeps in reply, 

And turns her soft eye 
To the serpent that trails in the dust. 

The curse of our fathers is on us ! 

We fall every day as they fell : 

The serpent beguiles 

With his old cunning wiles, 

And the woman we love so well. 
156 



God in the Garden. 157 

Lost, lost is the garden of Eden ! 
The cherubim drive us away ; 

Yet, sad heart, be cheered, 

For Jehovah is heard 
Calling still in the cool of the day. 

" Where art thou ? " he says. " O sinner ! 

Why wilt thou not come unto me ? " 

Our Eden's restored 

In the light of the Lord: 

O glory, my God, unto Thee ! 
14 




Let me Go/ 



The wind is wailing in the pines ; 
My boat is rocking on the sea; 
The last light dies in fading lines ; 
The world will soon be dark to me: 
Oh let me go ! 
Cut loose the frail, the single strand 
That holds my rocking boat to land, 
And let me go ! 

Wail on, sad wind, till thou be still ! 

Rock, rock my boat, O darkling seas ! 
My friends may praise me if they will; 

My foes may mock me as they please 

Oh let me go ! 

Cut off, cut off the single strand 

That holds my life-boat to the land, 

And let me go ! 
158 



The Two Figures. 



I saw two figures in the light 

Stand out like statues as I dreamed : 

A skeleton — oh ghastly sight ! — 

And a sweet youth who sleeping seemed. 

"Ah, this is hateful Death!" I thought, 

" With cold, white bones and sockets deep ; 
And this our Life, for ever wrought 
Of dreams, of shadows and of sleep." 

"Your thought is wrong! your thought IVe read!" 
Some Spirit spoke. I held my breath. 

"This skeleton is Life," he said, 

"And this sweet sleeping youth is Death. 

"Your life to us is cold and bare. 

We sigh and sorrow for your sake. 

Your death we welcome everywhere, 

That sweet, sweet sleep from which you wake." 

i59 



New Thanatopsis. 



Beneath the glory of a brighter sun 

Than that which keeps this moving globe of dust 

True to its orbit, and with vision fed 

By spiritual light and wisdom sent from God, 

I sought for Death throughout the universe — 

If haply I might note the dreaded being 

Who casts such awful shadow on our hearts, 

And seems to break, with his discordant step, 

The harmonies of nature. But in vain 

I scanned the range of substance infinite 

From God to angels, and through men to earth, 

To beast, bird, serpent and the ocean tribes, 

To worms and flowers, and the atomic forms 

Of crystalline creations. Change had been, 

Perpetual evolution and fresh life, 

And metamorphoses to higher states — 

An orderly progress, like the building up 

Of pyramids from earth's material base 

Into the fields of sunlight — but no Death. 
1 60 



New TJianatopsis. 161 

With deep solemnity akin to fear, 

I pondered o'er the elemental world, 

That seeming chaos, but its bosom held 

No embryonic forms but those of life ; 

Nor did the spiritual origin of things 

Elude my recognition in the maze 

Of chemic transformations. Then I read 

The geologic leaves of stone sublime, 

Immortal book in an immortal tongue, 

Full of mysterious life. And then I looked 

Into the dark mausoleums of the past, 

And up the swift and shadowy stream of Time, 

Upon whose banks nations and men are said 

To have perished. And I turned the teeming soil 

Of all the battle-fields of every age, 

Peered into charnels, tracked the desolate paths 

Of plague and famine, and surveyed with awe 

The secrets of the sea — but found no Death. 

To spirits, the veil of whose material temple 

Is rent in twain, and who are capable 

Of purer thought and more interior life, 

His name and nature are alike unknown. 

Throughout the choral harmony of things, 

And all the vast economy of God, 
14* 



1 62 New Thanatopsis. 

He has no place or power. There is no Death ! 
God, God alone, is Life ; and all our life, 
And all the varying substance of the world, 
From Him derived, and vitalized by Him ; 
And every change which we ascribe to Death 
Is but a change in form or place or state 
Of something which can never cease to live. 

Insensate matter is the base of all, 

The pedestal of life, the supple mould 

Through which the vital currents come and go. 

The universe, with its infinity, 

Is but the visible garment of our God; 

The sun is but the garment of our heavens ; 

The body is the garment of our soul, 

The coarse, material outbirth of its life, 

Its medium for a time, a shell which keeps 

Within its curves the music of the sea — 

A wondrous thing! which seems to live, but does 

not, 
For nothing lives but God, and all in Him. 

The Spirit is a substance, a pure form 
Of immaterial tissue, finely wrought 



New Thanatopsis. 163 

Into the human shape, unseen in this 
Our physical existence, but the cause 
Of all its motions and its very life. 
When ripened for a more exalted sphere, 
The soul exuves its earthly envelope, 
And leaves the atoms of its chemic dross — 
Oh never, never more to be resumed ! — 
For worms or weeds or flowers to animate, 
While it withdraws to more august abodes, 
Happier beyond comparison than those 
Who pass in joy from hovels all forlorn 
To palaces imperial. 

None have died 
From earth's first revolution to the present, 
But all are living who have ever lived. 
Earth has indeed no monuments of Death, 
But only vestiges of those who passed 
Through this inevitable vale of shadows, 
And left behind the prints of busy hands, 
That are still busier now, and songful echoes 
Of friendly voices that are singing still. 

In gloom and darkness was the poet lost 
Who calls this earth the mighty tomb of man : 



164 New Thanatopsis. 

Tis but his temporary habitation, 

His cradle and his school of discipline — 

The dark, cold ground in which the seed is sown, 

That, struggling upward, slowly germinates 

Until it bursts into the shining air. 

Not Christ .alone has risen, but all have risen : 
The stone is rolled from every sepulchre ; 
The grave has nothing it can render back. 
When we ascend to our eternal homes, 
We leave no living fragment of ourselves. 
We do not pass from nature to the grave ; 
But nature is our grave, from which we rise 
At seeming death, our real resurrection, 
Into the world of spirits. And the tomb, 
With all its grief and tenderness and shadow, 
Is the creation of our sluggish minds, 
By kindly memories and sweet suggestions, 
To cherish and prolong the love of friends, 
Gone, but not lost; unseen, but nearer still, 
In beauty and in glory, to our life, 
Which lives in God, immortal as Himself. 



